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iGHliliab  Lincoln:     guide 

presidents « 


to  succeeding 


LINCOLN  ROOM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


THE  GUIDE  TO  SUCCEEDING 
PRESIDENTS 


By 
EMANUEL  HERTZ 


Delivered  over  WOR,  February  11,  19^ 


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ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
THE  GUIDE  TO  SUCCEEDING  PRESIDENTS 


By  EMANUEL  HERTZ 

THE  ambition  of  those  who  lead  in  every  walk  of  life  during 
the  ages  has  been  so  to  rule,  think,  write,  compose,  paint, 
preach — and  so  through  the  entire  gamut  of  man's  activity — 
that  those  who  come  after  them  should  be  guided  by  what  they 
have  done — what  they  had  set  up  for  those  who  would  follow. 
Of  all  the  myriads  who  have  thus  gone  the  way  of  all  human 
beings,  who  appear  and  disappear,  how  many  stand  out  and 
apart  among  great  writers,  among  men  of  achievement, 
founders  of  States,  the  conquerors,  who  can  say,  if  they  need 
say  it  at  all :  "Follow  me."  Those  few  elect  who  are  followed 
need  not  beckon — the  very  fact  that  they  have  seen  part  of  and 
been  part  of  the  elemental,  the  eternal,  is  sufficient  to  ensure 
their  immortality.  How  many  are  there  among  the  rulers  of 
the  world,  in  recorded  history,  who  are  ■  thus  implicitly  fol- 
lowed? No  one  name  springs  to  our  lips,  whom  we  could  com- 
mend in  ancient  or  medieval  history — with  the  possible  excep- 
tion of  Alfred  the  Great — ^but  he  has  become  so  mythical,  so 
indistinct  a  figure  as  to  be  but  a  poor  example  to  set  up.  Rather 
must  we  turn  to  the  other  example — Machiavelli — who  stands 
out  a  sample  of  the  selfish  prince,  and  we  must  unhesitatingly 
state  that  he  must  not  be  followed.  Every  other  name  must,  if 
to  act  as  a  model,  be  c[ualified,  some. act  or  deed  stands  in  the 
way  of  a  claim  for  immortality.  But  when  we  reach  the  19th 
century,  we  do  find  what  we  miss  in  other  centuries  and  in  all 
other  lands.  We  find  one  name  which  we  may  without  any 
hesitation  class  with  the  few  great  names  which  come  down 
to  us  through  the  millennia.     Hammurabi,  that  indistinct  legis- 


787397 


lator  of  hoary  antiquity,  Moses  in  Egypt  and  in  the  Desert, 
who  studied  him,  Socrates  of  Athens,  Alfred  of  Anglo-Saxon 
England,  William  of  Orange  and  Abraham  Lincoln — the  last 
has  certainly  accomplished  what  most  of  the  others  have  done 
in  part  only.  He  has  even  become  the  guide  of  our  perplexed 
presidents.  Every  succeeding  President,  regardless  of  party, 
regardless  of  the  school  of  politics  which  claimed  him,  had  but 
one  rule  in  his  official  life.  "What  would  Lincoln  do  in  my 
place" — "How  would  Lincoln  act" — "How  would  Lincoln 
settle  this  or  that  great  problem?"  Nay,  more.  Every  one  of 
them  from  the  fitful  and  futile  administration  of  Johnson  to 
the  superbly  balanced  official  career  of  Coolidge,  have  gone  to 
Lincoln's  works,  to  his  recorded  State  papers,  to  his  marvelous 
epistles  and  letters,  some  of  them  even  now  appearing  from 
their  hiding  places  and  sought  advice,  consolation,  help  and 
justification  for  what  they  advised,  for  what  they  counselled, 
and  for  what  they  sought  to  enact  into  law.  Each  one  claimed 
or  hoped  to  be  the  logical  successor  of  Lincoln,  each  one  but 
continuing  the  tasks  which  he,  the  great  War  President,  had 
laid  down.  Like  some  great  architect  who  plans  and  prepares 
a  great  world  city  to  be  completed  and  finished  by  those  who 
follow — so  did  these  succeeding  Presidents  find  the  plans  of 
Lincoln's  Union  indellibly  traced  for  them  in  the  government 
and  in  the  conduct  of  these  United  States.  The  greater  the 
President,  the  greater  his  insight  into  Lincoln.  The  more  he 
would  seek  to  better  his  people,  the  nearer  he  came  to  the  great 
rail-splitter  whose  great  heart  beat  for  all.  From  Johnson  to 
Coolidge,  every  President  has  seen  himself  walking  in  the  foot- 
steps of  his  great  predecessor,  overshadowed  in  the  penumbra 
of  that  receding  star  of  the  first  magnitude.  Johnson  knew  him 
as  an  associate;  he  was  one  of  his  war  governors,  his  second 
Vice-President.  And  this  is  what  Johnson  sorrowfully  spoke 
of  his  dead  leader:  "In  the  midst  of  the  American  people, 
when  every  citizen  is  taught  to  obey  the  law  and  observe  the 
rules  of  Christian  conduct,  our  Chief  Magistrate,  the  beloved 


of  all  hearts,  has  been  assassinated;  ^  ^  ^  ^  great  and 
good  man,  honored  and  revered,  the  beloved  and  the  hope  of 
the  people,  h<  *  *^  When  future  generations  shall  read  the 
history  of  the  second  revolutionary  crisis  in  which  our  Republic 
is  now  redeemed  and  regenerated  from  the  curse  of  slavery, 
Abraham  Lincoln  will  stand  out  the  greatest  man  of  the  age." 

Grant  respected  and  revered  the  only  man  who  divined  his 
military  plans,  the  man  who  plucked  him  from  obscurity  and 
made  him  Commander-in-Chief. 

And  this  is  what  he  has  to  say  about  him : 

"Amid  obloquy,  personal  abuse,  and  hate  undisguised,  and 
which  was  given  vent  to  without  restraint  through  the  press, 
upon  the  stump,  and  in  private  circles,  he  remained  the  same 
staunch,  unyielding  servant  of  the  people,  never  exhibiting  a 
revengeful  feeling  toward  his  traducers,  but  he  rather  pitied 
them  ,and  hoped,  for  their  own  sake,  and  the  good  name  of 
their  posterity,  that  they  might  desist.  *  *  *  With  all  his 
disappointments  from  failures  on  the  part  of  those  who  had 
gained  his  confidence  but  to  betray  it,  I  never  heard  him  utter 
a  complaint,  nor  cast  a  censure  for  bad  conduct  or  bad  faith. 
It  was  his  nature  to  find  excuses  for  his  adversaries." 

Hayes,  the  noble,  humble,  religious  warrior — the  plain  soldier 
risen  to  the  rank  General,  Governor  and  President,  designated 
by  someone  as  the  best  prepared  and  best  trained  man  for  the 
Presidential  ofHce,  revered  his  military  chief  and  expressed  in 
noble  and  eloquent  periods  how  deeply  the  words  of  Lincoln 
sank  into  his  religious  soul. 

"As  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  name  and  fame  and  memory,"  says 
President  Hayes,  "all  is  safe.  His  firmness,  moderation,  good- 
ness of  heart ;  his  quaint  humor,  his  perfect  honesty  and  direct- 
ness of  purpose,  his  logic,  his  modesty,  his  sound  judgment,  and 
great  wisdom ;  the  contrast  between  his  obscure  beginnings  and 
the  greatness  of  his  subsequent  position  and  achievements;  his 
tragic  death,  giving  him  almost  the  crown  of  martyrdom,  elevate 


him  to  a  place  in  history  second  to  none  other  in  ancient  or 
modern  times.  His  success  in  his  great  office,  his  hold  upon 
the  confidence  and  affections  of  his  countrymen,  we  shall  all 
say  are  only  second  to  Washington's;  we  shall  probably  feel 
and  think  that  they  are  not  second  even  to  his.  (A  year  later 
Mr.  Hayes  wrote.)  The  truth  is,  if  it  were  not  sacrilege,  I 
should  say  Lincoln  is  overshadowing  Washington.  Washing- 
ton is  formal,  statue-like — a  figure  for  exhibition.  But  both 
were  necessary  to  complete  our  history.  Neither  could  have 
done  the  other's  work." 

No  more  eloquent  expression  to  what  Lincoln  was  and  is,  is 
to  be  found  anywhere  than  in  the  words  of  Garfield — the  sec- 
ond martyr — the  second  victim  of  the  assassin.  No  more 
superb  expression  of  the  magnitude  of  our  loss  is  to  be  found 
anywhere  than  in  his  scholarly  utterances  in  the  Halls  of  Con- 
gress, and  there  were  men  in  both  Houses  of  Congress  in  those 
days.  "The  President  is  dead,  but  the  government  in  Wash- 
ington lives," — stilled  the  crowds,  who  were  infuriated  by  the 
cowardly  act  of  the  assassin  on  the  most  dismal  Good  Friday  in 
our  history. 

Says  Garfield  in  attempting  to  epitomize  that  great  career : 

"Gifted  with  an  insight  and  a  foresight  which  the  ancients 
would  have  called  divination,  he  saw,  in  the  midst  of  darkness 
and  obscurity,  the  logic  of  events,  and  forecast  the  result. 
From  the  first,  in  his  own  quaint,  original  way,  without  ostenta- 
tion or  offense  to  his  associates,  he  was  pilot  and  commander  of 
his  administration.  He  was  one  of  the  few  great  rulers  whose 
wisdom  increased  with  his  power,  and  whose  spirit  grew  gentler 
and  tenderer  as  his  triumphs  were  multiplied." 

And  so  we  pass  to  another  soldier, — President  Arthur,  who 
followed  Lincoln  in  the  field — and  to  the  sturdy  Cleveland  who 
in  many  respects  followed  his  predecessor  — "All  my  life  I  have 
tried  so  hard  to  do  right" — a  real  Lincoln  utterance.  And  this 
is  his  high  tribute  to  the  country  lawyer  Lincoln : 

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''Lincoln,  too,  was  a  country  lawyer;  and  he  was  called  to 
save  the  nation.  He  never  lost  the  impress  of  an  early  life 
closely  surrounded  by  all  the  incidents  of  rural  existence,  and 
encompassed  by  the  stern  providences  of  God.  He,  too,  loved 
the  country ;  and  He  Who  made  the  country  gave  him,  in  com- 
pensation an  unstinted  measure  of  inspiration  for  the  most 
impressive  and  solemn  public  duty. 

"The  deeds  of  these  two  country  lawyers  need  no  special 
recital.  They  are  written  in  the  annals  of  a  grateful  nation,  and 
challenge  the  admiration  of  mankind.  And  who  shall  say  that 
the  majestic  forms  of  Webster  and  Lincoln,  standing  forth  in 
the  bright  light  of  human  achievement,  do  not  teach  the  world 
how  the  nobility  of  American  character  is  developed  by  Amer- 
ican rural  life?" 

And  then  the  soldier  boy  in  the  Civil  War  who  reached  the 
Presidency — McKinley — the  first  soldier  to  halt  the  rout  at 
Winchester  and  help  Phil.  Sheridan  pluck  victory  from  defeat, 
— a  nobler  soul  never  lived.  When  he  graced  the  great  office  to 
which  he  came — the  first  plain  soldier  to  be  raised  on  the  shield 
of  his  comrades  to  the  highest  position  in  the  land — ^he  simply 
quotes  and  follows  the  great  Commoner  at  all  times ;  in  almost 
every  address  of  moment  he  quotes,  he  refers  to,  he  follows 
Lincoln : 

"Lincoln,"  says  McKinley,  "had  sublime  faith  in  the  people. 
He  walked  with  and  among  them.  He  recognized  the  im- 
portance and  power  of  an  enlightened  public  sentiment  and 
was  guided  by  it.  Even  amid  the  vicissitudes  of  war,  he  con- 
cealed little  from  public  review  and  inspection..  In  all  he  did, 
he  invited,  rather  than  evaded  examination  and  criticism.  He 
submitted  his  plans  and  purposes,  as  far  as  practicable,  to  public 
consideration  with  perfect  frankness  and  sincerity.  There  was 
such  homely  simplicity  in  his  character  that  it  could  not  be 
hedged  in  by  the  pomp  of  place,  nor  the  ceremonials  of  high 
official  station.  He  was  so  accessible  to  the  public  that  he 
seemed  to  take  the  whole  people  into  his  confidence.    Here  per- 

9 


haps  was  the  secret  of  his  power.  The  people  never  lost  their 
confidence  in  him,  however  much  they  added  to  his  personal 
discomfort  and  trials.  His  patience  was  almost  superhuman; 
and  who  will  say  that  he  was  mistaken  in  his  treatment  of  the 
thousands  who  thronged  continually  about  him?  More  than 
once  when  reproached  for  permitting  visitors  to  crowd  upon 
him,  he  asked,  in  pained  surprise:  'Why  what  harm  does  this 
confidence  in  men  do  me  ?  I  get  only  good  and  inspiration  from 
it.' " 

And  when  he  became  the  third  martyr  in  the  list  of  murdered 
Presidents — ^he  is  succeeded  by  the  versatile  and  scholarly 
Roosevelt — whose  heart  was  practically  carved  from  that  of 
his  one  ideal  character  in  his  tempestous  and  active  career.  His 
the  only  portrait  before  him  at  his  work — he  could  not  mix  with 
any  other  personality.  "Where  could  I  get  a  real  portrait  of 
Lincoln?"  he  writes  to  Prof.  Norton.  His  Lincoln  addresses 
are  the  very  high  water  mark  of  Lincoln  appreciation  and  Lin- 
coln eulogy.  Lincoln's  soul  echoes  and  re-echoes  throughout 
the  life  and  deeds  of  Theodore  Roosevelt : 

"*  *  *  This  rail-splitter,"  says  President  Roosevelt — ■ 
"this  boy  who  passed  his  ungainly  youth  in  the  dire  poverty  of 
the  poorest  of  the  frontier  folk,  whose  rise  was  by  weary  and 
painful  labor — lived  to  lead  his  people  through  the  burning 
flames  of  a  struggle  from  which  the  nation  emerged,  purified 
as  by  fire,  born  anew  to  a  loftier  life.  After  long  years  of  iron 
effort,  and  of  failure  that  came  more  often  than  victory,  he  at 
last  rose  to  the  leadership  of  the  Republic  at  the  moment  when 
that  leadership*  had  become  the  stupendous  world-task  of  the 
time.  He  grew  to  know  greatness,  but  never  ease.  Success 
came  to  him,  but  never  happiness,  save  that  which  springs  from 
doing  well  a  painful  and  a  vital  task.  Power  was  his,  but  not 
pleasure.  The  furrows  deepened  on  his  brow,  but  his  eyes 
were  undimmed  by  either  hate  or  fear.  His  gaunt  shoulders 
were  bowed,  but  his  steel  thews  never  faltered  as  he  bore  for 
a  burden  the  destinies  of  his  people.     His  great  and  tender 

10 


heart  shrank  from  giving  pain;  and  the  task  allotted  him  was 
to  pour  out  like  water  the  life  blood  of  the  young  men,  and  to 
feel  in  his  every  fibre  the  sorrow  of  the  women.  Disaster  sad- 
dened but  never  dismayed  him.  As  the  red  years  of  war  went 
by  they  found  him  ever  doing  his  duty  in  the  present,  ever 
facing  the  future  with  fearless  front — high  of  heart,  and 
dauntless  of  soul.  Unbroken  by  hatred,  unshaken  by  scorn,  he 
worked  and  suffered  for  the  people.  Triumph  was  his  at  the 
last ;  and  barely  had  he  tasted  it  before  murder  found  him,  and 
the  kindly,  patient,  fearless  eyes  were  closed  forever." 

And  when  his  great-hearted  and  big-brained  successor  came 
along,  Lincoln  had  an  additional  appeal — the  great  jurist  recog- 
nized the  great  lawyer  in  addition  to  the  great  President.  Presi- 
dent Taft  certainly  contributed  his  share  of  appreciation  of 
Lincoln  in  his  far-flung  travels  and  multifarious  experiences. 
In  the  Presidency  and  out  of  it — he  ever  was  a  keen  student  and 
an  humble  follower  of  the  lawyer-statesman  of  Illinois.  In  his 
Springfield  address  President  Taft  says: 

"Those  traits  in  him  which  now  place  him  with  Washington, 
and  with  Washington  alone,  did  not  make  themselves  clearly 
manifest  and  were  not  fully  developed  until  the  trials  of  the 
four  years  of  our  awful  Civil  War.  In  that  supreme  test  he 
threw  off  such  dross  as  his  early  life  may  have  shown,  and  the 
gold  of  his  great  character  and  intellect  shone  forth  in  its 
purity."  *  *  *  Lincoln  had  to  go  down  through  the  val- 
ley of  the  shadow  of  popular  denunciation  and  popular  dis- 
trust. *  *  *  YoT  months  and  years  he  had  to  strengthen 
himself  with  the  thought  that  he  alone  understood  the  problems 
that  he  was  working  out:  he  alone  had  the  necessary  clearness 
of  vision  to  see  far  beyond  the  present  and  secure  the  Nation's 
salvation  at  the  expense  of  popular  misunderstanding  and 
partisan  attack.  But  fortunately,  he  lived  through  these  trials, 
and  his  martyr's  death  did  not  come  until  the  people  knew  of 
his  patience,  his  sacrifice,  his  great  qualities  of  heart  and  mind, 
his  patriotism,   and  his    far-sighted   statesmanship.     And  the 

11 


generations  that  have  followed  and  will  follow  him,  even  those 
whose  ancestors  were  in  conflict  with  him,  will  give  him  a 
higher  and  higher  place  in  the  history  of  the  world." 

And  then  came  the  great  stylist,  the  great  scholar,  who  had 
transformed  a  local  school — Witherspoon's  and  Madison's 
school — into  a  great  national  university,  and  transformed  the 
governorship  of  New  Jersey  from  a  petty  office  into  a  great 
engine  for  wholesome  legislation — he  certainly  found  a  leader 
in  the  great  scion  of  the  backwoods  of  Illinois.  This  is  what 
he  says : 

"*  *  *  When  you  read  that  name  you  are  at  once  aware 
of  something  that  distinguishes  it  from  all  the  rest.  There  was 
in  each  of  those  other  men  some  special  gift,  but  not  in  Lincoln. 
You  cannot  pick  Lincoln  out  for  any  special  characteristic.  He 
did  not  have  any  one  of  those  peculiar  gifts  that  the  other  men 
on  this  list  possessed.  He  does  not  seem  to  belong  in  a  list  at 
all ;  he  seems  to  stand  unique  and  singular  and  complete  in  him- 
self. The  name  makes  the  same  impression  upon  the  ear  that 
the  name  of  Shakespeare  makes,  because  it  is  as  if  he  contained 
a  world  within  himself.  And  that  is  the  thing  which  marks  the 
singular  stature  and  nature  of  this  great — and,  we  would  fain 
believe,  typical — American.  Because  when  you  try  to  describe 
the  character  of  Lincoln  you  seem  to  be  trying  to  describe  a 
great  process  of  nature.  Lincoln  seems  to  have  been  of  general 
human  use  and  not  of  particular  and  limited  human  use.  There 
was  no  point  at  which  life  touched  him  that  he  did  not  speak 
back  to  it  instantly  its  meaning.  There  was  no  afifair  that 
touched  him  to  which  he  did  not  give  back  life,  as  if  he  had 
communicated  a  spark  of  fire  to  kindle  it.  The  man  seemed  to 
have,  slumbering  in  him,  powers  which  he  did  not  exert  of  his 
own  choice,  but  which  woke  the  moment  they  were  challenged, 
and  for  which  no  challenge  was  too  great  or  comprehensive." 

And  again  in  "Mere  Literature" : 

"Lincoln,  nevertheless,  rather  than  Jackson,  was  the  supreme 
American  of  our  history.    In  Clay,  East  and  West  were  mixed 

12 


without  being  fused  or  harmonized:  he  seems  like  two  men. 
In  Jackson  there  was  not  even  a  mixture ;  he  was  all  of  a  piece, 
and  altogether  unacceptable  to  some  parts  of  the  country, — a 
frontier  statesman.  But  in  Lincoln  the  elements  were  com- 
bined and  harmonized.  The  most  singular  thing  about  the 
wonderful  career  of  the  man  is  the  way  in  which  he  steadily 
grew  into  a  national  stature.  He  began  an  amorphous,  un- 
licked  cub,  bred  in  the  rudest  of  human  lairs ;  but,  as  he  grew, 
everything  formed,  informed,  transformed  him.  The  process 
was  slow  but  unbroken.  He  was  not  fit  to  be  President  until 
he  actually  became  President.  He  was  fit  then  because,  learn- 
ing everything  as  he  went,  he  had  found  out  how  much  there 
was  to  learn,  and  had  still  an  infinite  capacity  for  learning.  The 
quiet  voices  of  sentiment  and  murmurs  of  resolution  that  went 
whispering  through  the  land,  his  ear  always  caught,  when  others 
could  hear  nothing  but  their  own  words.  He  never  ceased  to  be 
a  common  man:  that  was  his  source  of  strength.  But  he  was  a 
common  man  with  genius,  a  genius  for  things  American,  for  in- 
sight into  the  common  thought,  for  mastery  of  the  fundamental 
things  of  politics  that  inhere  in  human  nature  and  cast  hardly 
more  than  their  shadows  on  constitutions;  for  the  practical 
niceties  of  affairs;  for  judging  men  and  assessing  arguments. 
Jackson  had  no  social  imagination:  no  unfamiliar  community 
made  any  impression  on  him.  His  whole  fibre  stiffened  young, 
and  nothing  afterward  could  modify  or  even  deeply  affect  it. 
But  Lincoln  was  always  a-making;  he  would  have  died  unfin- 
ished if  the  terrible  storms  of  the  war  had  not  stung  him  to 
learn  in  those  four  years  what  no  other  twenty  could  have 
taught  him.  And,  as  he  stands  there  in  his  complete  manhood, 
at  the  most  perilous  helm  in  Christendom,  what  a  marvelous 
composite  figure  he  is !  The  whole  country  is  summed  up  in 
him :  the  rude  Western  strength,  tempered  with  shrewdness  and 
a  broad  and  humane  wit;  the  Eastern  conservatism,  regardful 
of  law  and  devoted  to  fixed  standards  of  duty.  He  even  un- 
derstood, the  South,  as  no  other  Northern  man  of  his  genera- 

13 


tion  did.  He  respected,  because  he  comprehended,  though  he 
could  not  hold,  its  view  of  the  Constitution ;  he  appreciated  the 
inexorable  compulsions  of  its  past  in  respect  of  slavery;  he 
would  have  secured  it  once  more,  and  speedily  if  possible,  in  its 
right  to  self-government,  when  the  fight  was  fought  out.  To 
the  Eastern  politicians  he  seemed  like  an  accident;  but  to  his- 
tory he  must  seem  like  a  providence." 

I  cannot  help  using  one  more  extract: 

''That  brooding  spirit  had  no  familiars.  I  get  the  impression 
that  it  never  spoke  out  in  complete  self -revelation,  and  that  it 
could  not  reveal  itself  completely  to  anyone.  It  was  a  very 
lonely  spirit  that  looked  out  from  underneath  those  shaggy 
brows  and  comprehended  men  without  fully  communing  with 
them,  as  if,  in  spite  of  all  its  genial  efforts  at  comradeship,  it 
dwelt  apart,  saw  its  visions  of  duty  where  no  man  looked  on. 
There  is  a  very  holy  and  very  terrible  isolation  for  the  con- 
science of  every  man  who  seeks  to  read  the  destiny  in  affairs 
for  others  as  well  as  for  himself,  for  a  nation  as  well  as-  for 
individuals.  That  privacy  no  man  can  intrude  upon.  That 
lonely  search  of  the  spirit  for  the  right  perhaps  no  man  can 
assist.  This  strange  child  of  the  cabin  kept  company  with  in- 
visible things,  was  born  into  no  intimacy  but  that  of  its  own 
silently  assembling  and  deploying  thoughts." 

Among  the  great  number  of  great  orations  delivered  by 
Woodrow  Wilson — and  the  number  is  remarkably  great — none 
is  finer  than  the  two  on  Abraham  Lincoln — and  he  unwittingly 
acknowledged  the  superiority  of  the  rail-splitter's  literary 
genius  on  the  day  when  he  attempted — fifty  years  later — to 
supplement  at  the  Gettysburg  Cemetery  what  Lincoln  said  and 
did  there  for  eternity.  The  genial  Harding  could  not  help  but 
fall  in  line,  body  and  soul  into  the  channel  hewn  by  his  great 
predecessor — and  although  he  lacked  the  finnesse,  the  great 
ideals  of  his  immediate  precursors,  he  paid  full  tribute,  es- 
pecially on  two  occasions,  for  what  he  owed  to  Abraham  Lin- 
coln : 

14 


"We  are  coming  year  by  year,"  says  Harding,  "to  a  more 
truthful  and  understanding  appraisal  of  him  *  *  *  "VVe  do 
know  that  as  men  contemplate  this  strange  career  and  study  its 
wonders  and  its  lessons,  they  are  at  least  planting  in  their  minds 
and  hearts  a  certain  vague  realization  of  what  Lincoln  was  and 
meant;  a  consciousness  of  his  personal  significance  to  them; 
and  with  all  this,  a  keen  aspiration  for  some  little  participation 
in  such  a  bestowal  of  selflessness,  sacrifice  and  service  as  was 
the  life  of  Lincoln.  That  apiration,  *  *  *  jg  fixed  in  a 
greater  number  of  human  hearts  today  than  it  ever  was  before. 
It  may  be  somewhat  vague  and  unformed,  yet  we  readily  rec- 
ognize that  it  represents  something  like  the  aspirations  of  a  race 
for  a  new  incarnation  of  the  spirit  and  the  leadership  of  Lin- 
coln." 


*' Somehow  my  emotions  incline  me  to  speak  simply  as  a 
reverent  and  grateful  American,  rather  than  one  in  official  re- 
sponsibility. I  am  thus  inclined  because  the  true  measure  of 
Lincoln  is  in  its  place  today  in  the  heart  of  American  citizenship 
though  nearly  half  a  century  has  passed  since  his  colossal  serv- 
ice and  his  martyrdom.  Li  every  moment  of  peril,  in  every 
-hour  of  discouragement,  whenever  the  clouds  gather  there  is 
the  image  of  Lincoln  to  rivet  our  hopes  and  to  renew  our  faith. 
Whenever  there  is  a  glow  of  triumph  over  national  achievement 
there  comes  the  reminder  that  but  for  Lincoln's  heroic  and  un- 
alterable faith  in  the  Union  these  triumphs  could  not  have 
been." 

And  finally,  the  keenest  stylist  of  them  all — the  man  of  the 
short  crisp  sentence — of  the  chiselled  paragraphs — the  creator 
of  winged  phrase  and  nugget-like  axioms — he  certainly  has 
pored  long  and  often  over  the  written  word  of  that  scholar  of 
the  Bible  and  of  Bunyan,  of  Shakespeare  and  of  Burns — could 
he  help  not  to  achieve  such  diction  then,  as  is  his  ?  Says  Presi- 
dent Coolidge: 

15 


"Whenever  men  look  upon  his  hfe,  they  are  filled  with  new 
wonder.  About  him  there  was  never  any  needless  thing.  No 
useless  burdens  held  him  back.  No  wilderness  of  tangled  ideas 
bewildered  his  vision.  For  him  the  outward  show  of  the  world 
was  cast  aside  that  he  might  be  a  larger  partaker  of  reality. 
His  cradle  was  bare,  but  above  it  was  the  precious  canopy  of . 
love  of  a  gentle  mother.  When  she  was  borne  away  in  his 
early  boyhood,  he  had  learned  the  great  lesson  that  all  this" 
world  is- mortal.  From  his  youth  he  knew  that  anguish  is  the 
common  lot  of  mankind.  In  his  rearing  there  was  no  false  art. 
Like  the  strengthening  of  his  body,  the  strengthening  of  his 
mind  came  from  great  Nature." 

I  had  almost  forgotten  Benjamin  Harrison,  probably  the 
greatest  lawyer  in  the  Presidency,  how  he  discerned  the  great- 
ness of  Lincoln  at  a  time  when  passions  were  far  from  being 
stilled,  when  a  recrudescence  of  hatred  in  the  South  was  mani- 
fest, when  Dixie  w^as  momentarily  in  the  saddle  in  the  Federal 
government.  But  Harrison  saw  what  Lincoln  meant  to 
humanity  and  said  it  in  clearly  formulated  sentences  of  ad- 
miration and  reverence. 

Benjamin  Harrison  thus  epitomizes  the  work  of  the  great 
War  President : 

''The  Civil  War  called  for  a  President  who  had  faith  in  time, 
for  his  country  as  well  as  for  himself ;  who  could  endure  the 
impatience  of  others  and  bide  his  time.  A  man  who  could  by 
a  strong  but  restrained  diplomatic  correspondence  hold  oft* 
foreign  intermeddlers  and  at  the  same  time  lay  the  same  basis 
for  the  Geneva  award,  a  man  who  could  in  all  his  public  utter- 
ances, while  maintaining  the  authority  of  the  law  and  the  just 
rights  of  the  national  government,  breathe  an  undertone  of 
yearning  for  the  misguided  and  the  rebellious ;  a  man  who 
could  hold  the  war  and  the  policy  of  the  government  to  its 
original  purpose — the  restoration  of  the  states  without  the  de- 
struction of  slavery — until  public  sentiment  was  ready  to  sup- 

16 


port  a  proclamation  of  Emancipation ;  a  man  who  could  win 
and  hold  the  love  of  the  soldier  and  of  the  masses  of  the  people ; 
a  man  who  could  be  just  without  pleasure  in  the  severities  of 
justice,  who  loved  to  forgive  and  pardon  *  *  =k  Qualities 
of  heart  and  mind  combined  to  make  a  man  who  has  won  the 
love  of  mankind  *  *  *  He  stands  like  a  great  lighthouse 
to  show  the  way  of  duty  to  all  his  countrymen  and  to  send  afar 
a  beam  of  courage  to  those  who  beat  against  the  winds." 

And  so  we  have  found  a  type  of  ruler  who  truly  belongs  to 
the  ages — for  so  many  reasons  which  have  repeatedly  been 
enumerated  by  statesman  and  poet,  by  journalist  and  by 
preacher,  by  jurist  and  by  teacher — but  for  the  additional  great 
reason  that  he  ruled  with  charity  toward  all  and  with  malice 
toward  none,  and  demonstrated  that  we  were  in  a  land  where 
there  were  no  enemies,  but  all  were  friends — cemented  by  his 
few  elemental  principles  of  government,  that  all  men  were 
equal,  that  all  men  to  be  equal  must  be  free,  and  that  when  that 
was  achieved  a  constitution  must  be  cast  in  such  frames  of  steel 
that  government  of  the  people  and  by  the  people  must  endure 
for  all  time. 

Certain  travellers  of  the  11th  century  relate,  as  Mazzini  tells 
us,  that  they  saw  at  Teneriffe,  a  prodigiously  lofty  tree  which, 
from  its  immense  extent  of  foliage,  collected  all  the  vapours 
of  the  atmosphere;  to  discharge  them,  when  its  branches  were 
shaken,  in  a  shower  of  pure,  refreshing  water.  Lincoln  is  like 
this  wonderful  giant  tree — an  emblem  of  immortality — and  the 
mission  of  this  and  succeeding  ages  should  be  to  shake  the 
branches,  to  study  his  legacy  of  inspiration  as  seen  in  his  life, 
in  his  works,  in  his  ideals,  in  his  performances,  in  his  strivings 
and  in  his  achievements. 


17 


UmUmiyuHLUNOIS-URBANA 
973.7L63GH44AB  C001 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  THE  GUIDE  OT  SUCCEEDING 


3  0112  031819185 


